It’s been kind of a tough time around here lately, and by Monday I(!) was pretty much falling apart already. No, I’m not going into any details, suffice to say that my anxiety was hitting a pretty high level. By Wednesday evening I was basically falling apart.

So . . . the first blessing . . . my husband took yesterday off and declared he was giving ME a day off! Really, all I had to do was get myself, “The Batman” and “The Artist” to piano lesson. He kept “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” at home with him. I spent most of my time before going to piano working on the book launch/review which I posted yesterday. This did help somewhat, but he was nice enough to plan ahead and put in for a vacation day so he could take TODAY off, as well! I did need to take all of the boys to our monthly homeschool co-op at church this morning, which you’ll see and read about later, but once we got home, my husband told the kids that now it’s “Mom” time, and they have to come to him for everything for the rest of the day. He even got supper started for me in the roaster after I told him how to season it (an extra turkey I got on sale at Christmas), since it needed to be started while we were gone. 🙂

Our piano instruction book that our new teacher is putting us into has not yet come in at the music store, so she is kind of just maintaining us with some practice from our old books. It’s been over a year and a half since we had lessons (before we moved here to NM), so this is fine, because I for one, have forgotten a LOT! As they were before, though, both “The Batman” and “The Artist” are WORLDS ahead of me, however our teacher says she believes I will do well. She seems to think she can train me to be a church pianist! We will see. 🙂 Here is a short video of “The Batman” entertaining our teacher’s younger son during “The Artist’s” lesson . . .
There is just no way not to feel happy watching that! 🙂

Last night, since we knew my husband would not be going to work today, we let the boys stay up just a bit later than usual, and watched Iron Man 3. I had not seen it, so that was pretty good. The kids kept almost slipping up and referring to stuff from the Avengers movie (which I’ve not yet seen), things that had a bearing on what was happening. So, now I’m wanting to see the Avengers movie as soon as we can borrow a copy, lol!

This morning, we had co-op with our church homeschool group. We’re doing something a little different this semester, in that we’re trying to do some more educational things as opposed to just social things. For the next few months, we are having what we are calling the A&W group, for Art and Writing. We began with some beginning art lessons . . .

First, making sure the kids know what will be happening, and what is expected!

here’s the agenda . . .

If you can’t quite read the sign in the middle of the board (the one where each line begins with the letters R O C K S),

it reads like this:

Raise hand, silent mouth
Obey right away, all the way
Concentrate and stay focused
Keep your stuff to yourself
Show consideration

All good things, I’m thinking!

Miss Erica, beginning some easy lessons . . .

Here are some shots of the group, paying close attention to Miss Erica . . .

And some close-ups of my kids, hard at work!

“The Artist”

“The Batman”

“Mr. Loquacious”

“The Puzzler”

Here is a picture of the pre-schoolers, they had their own activity going in another room!

One of the things they worked on was the basics of drawing a lego mini-figure, and they’ll be working on their own personal one, which is to show something about their own personality, to bring back to co-op in February.

After art time, we made root beer floats, then watched a video segment from the “How It’s Made” program (shown below) about a factory where they make pop.

After the video, our group split into two sections, early readers/writers, and more advanced. The younger group worked on a little art/writing project on how to make a root beer float.

The rest of the kids worked on brainstorming their own stories about “A Crazy Day In A Soda Factory”, and began working on their stories. They’ll write them over the next month to bring back to co-op in February.

Working on their stories . . .

They all seem to have had a good time, so I’m glad we’re taking the co-op in this direction! We plan to have a “Creativity Fair” in April, where they may display any creative projects they have worked on during this time, either things from the co-op time or something creative they did on their own. I think it’ll be fun, and my kids are happy, since they totally missed the literature fair last year, because I had surgery the day before.

So, I’m going to go now and finish my “me” day, designing and working on some cards.

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4 responses to “Weekly Wrap-Up . . . Blessings And a Little Fun!”

I love the art/writing course the kids are doing at the co-op – how did the readers theatre go? I’ve always wanted to participate in one. How sweet of your hubby to stay home and let you have some “me” time. My hubby did the same thing – since I too had a high anxiety week. I have to say that it is “comforting” to read that other moms have similar struggles as I do.

Starting new things with a co-op takes a lot of energy! Looks like you have done a great job! So creative!!! I love that you are doing the fair to showcase their work, gives them something to work extra hard for. YAY for mommy day! I had one, but that’s cause I was sick. It would be fun to have one just to have one. Hope you enjoyed it!